The delivery was made by civil rights organisation AfriForum who says they want to bring the core arguments for the prioritisation of farm murders to Ramaphosa’s personal attention. An open letter to the President in video format was also published on YouTube today, in which Ernst Roets, Deputy CEO of AfriForum and author of the book, reads certain sections of the book to highlight these core arguments.
Roets explains that this step was taken after Ramaphosa denied in New York on 26 September this year that there was something like farm murders in South Africa. Last week, Ramaphosa also attempted in Parliament to explain and justify his comments. In his explanation, Ramaphosa simply quoted figures to argue that farm murders constitute only a small component of the total number of murders in South Africa.
“It is clear from your statement, which was evidently written by your advisors, that your advisors do not grasp the extent of the crisis,” Roets says in the video to the President before continuing to read the applicable excerpts from the book. “Debating the statistics – as you have attempted to do – is one thing. It is, however, a small aspect of the true extent of the crisis and only one quarter of the argument as to why farm attacks should be regarded as priority crimes.
“The point is, once again, that farm attacks and farm murders constitute a unique crime with unique and far-reaching consequences, and which justifies a counterstrategy. Your denial of the extent of the crisis implies that you have not even taken the first step to address the crisis, which is acknowledging the crisis in the first place.”
